Stoke D’Abernon Advent Calendar 2016 (11)

Listening to an old audio-book of Richie Benaud’s, in it he devotes a couple of chapters to what he calls “My Greatest XI.” By his definition they had to:

* Be brilliant cricketers, characters and good mixers on & off the pitch as they would be representing him.
* Have a beneficial effect on the game, be champions and have left an influence on cricket.
* Play on good pitches with pace, good for shots and fast bowlers, with spin to come into the game later on.

Getting to a final XI was obviously tough; so he applied the same formula he used to pick sides when he played:
– 2 opening bats
– batsmen 3, 4 and 5
– batting all-rounder at 6
– bowling all-rounder at 7
– keeper/keeper-bat at 8
– spinner at 9
– fast bowlers at 10 and 11

…but being limited to just an XI he allowed himself two subs for each position, giving him a tour party of 33!

So we put a call in to our own Richie, and the Parrett has looked at the list of Stokers he has taken the field with in his 223 game career to date, and he has come up with the following 33, (well, 31):

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